


your best possible world

by SerpentineJ



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, post-mizumono
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 05:59:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5956303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerpentineJ/pseuds/SerpentineJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“There’s no opportunity here, Frederick.” Will murmurs, still slightly hazy from his prolonged sleep, and had Chilton actually brought him flowers? “Not for you.”</p><p>Frederick can feel something dangerous, precarious, perched on the tip of his tongue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your best possible world

**Author's Note:**

> Or: In which Frederick is and, well, has always been desperately lonely, and Will finds that the people he had once been, for lack of a better word, close to are more eggshells than porcelain. 
> 
> NOTE: ok so i've had this on my hard drive forever and i kinda like it so i figure i'd just post whatever i have. if i do a hannibal rewatch i might pick it up again

“There’s someone here who’s very anxious to see you.” The doctor says clinically, turning towards the door, and Will feels like he’s surfacing from being underwater for a very long time, lungs burning, fingers numb. His head is full of cotton. “Feeling well enough for a visitor?”

Will’s heart stutters. Abigail.

The person who stands quietly in the doorway is not Abigail.

“Hi, Frederick.” He murmurs, a slightly rueful smile quirking the edges of his mouth. 

Chilton observes him for a moment, now at his bedside. He’s holding flowers, Will notices- white hydrangeas and wine-red lilies. 

“You were expecting someone else.” There’s nothing accusatory in the way he says it- it’s a statement of fact, and Will has to ponder, for a moment, on how the man has changed. He’s completely different from the strutting peacock Will had met two years ago. Chilton’s presence doesn't exude ostentatious importance anymore- he doesn't hold himself with his chest puffed or his eyebrows raised, is instead quietly knowing with a tint of smirking curiosity, some shade of dark blue with a swirl of maroon.

Chilton isn’t wearing a tie. He looks remarkably well for someone who, last Will had heard, had been shot in the face.

Will’s eyelids flutter, just barely. “I was hoping for someone else.”

The other man isn’t offended- he nods slightly.

“He knew exactly how to cut you. They said it was surgical.” Is Chilton trying to comfort him now? By proving that Hannibal actually cares for him, cared for Abigail, cared enough to try to spare him? “He wanted you to live.”

Will knows he can’t do this again, can’t become attached to the person-suit that calls itself Hannibal Lecter again. He can’t forgive him. If he allows the man into his head one more time, Hannibal will be the death of him. “He left us to die.”

“But we didn’t.” Frederick, for a moment, is Abigail- poor Abigail Hobbs, who was doomed from the moment Will and Hannibal rushed into the kitchen of her house. Abigail Hobbs, with the sociopathic tendencies and the hole in her heart where parental figures had come and gone, whispering through her veins and her life like ghosts, leaving sticky films and sheens of effect on her psyche. Abigail Hobbs, with the obedience and the stunted conscience and the constant, quiet turmoil between a need to be needed, even by someone as wicked as Hannibal Lecter and the moral emotion that pulled at her guts, sharp white claws glinting through the cherry mess of entrails of her character, strung them up like lines of lights around a tree in the family room.

“Couple of suckers we’ve been.” Chilton continues. He’s casually conversational, or as close to it that a man can be when he's speaking to someone who’s just woken from a five-week coma. “He set us up, and knocked us down.”

When Will doesn't respond, he keeps talking. “What bothers me the most is, I think it was easy for him." Chilton says. "Shooting monkeys in a barrel.”

Silence. 

“You had encephalitis- I do not know what my excuse was.”

“Compulsive imitation.” Will murmurs. It’s funny, in a way. Poor man.

Frederick frowns, like he’s considering the possibility. “How dull.” He says, frankly, then cocks his head, letting it sink in. “But maybe. I am learning all sorts of things about myself these days.” His tone is so much less overtly eager- almost sing-song.

He sets the flowers on the table by Will’s hospital bed with reserved, controlled motions, and again Will is nudged by the way Frederick has changed.

“I’m learning new things about you, too.” The way he says it is soft and smooth, warm. 

The corners of Will's quirk. “Imitation allows us to better understand the behavior of others.”

Frederick smiles back, not happily, not grimly. “I have great empathy for you, Will. Both of us have been serrated and accused. I have literally felt your pain.”

Will bares his teeth- a grin, a grimace, a bashful parting of lips. “We have matching scars.”

“You… need a friend.” Frederick sits in the chair the doctors had left by Will’s bed, props his elbows on his knees and leans forwards. He’s not wearing a tie, and the top buttons of his dress shirt are undone. It’s unsettling. “Friend.” 

When Will doesn’t respond, he continues. “You will leave this hospital under a cloud of suspicion.”

“Not a cloud, a fog.” Will interrupts, voice quiet. Cloud isn’t quite right- clouds are far above one’s head, and the only way they can do anything, really, is by blocking the sun or splitting themselves open to pour drenching water one the world.

Fog is so much more apt. Fogs obscure vision, hazing vision and seeping into the land, a damp chill that settles to the bone.

“I can help you get Hannibal Lecter out of your head.”

“And into your hospital.” Will smiles slightly. At least some aspect of the man hasn’t changed- he’s still as opportunity-seeking as he has always been. It’s calming. Ulterior motives, Will can deal with.

“There is opportunity here. For both of us.” Frederick goes on, leaning forwards- he seems sincere, open with a dash of a drive for vengeance tinging his words, and Will understands why Frederick seems so much more reserved- he doesn’t need to project high status anymore. He carries the experiences of a man who has been nearly killed not once, but twice- they twist in his stomach and still when they near his heart, giving way to a cool, certain mindset, so different from the inflated ego of the man Chilton had been in years past. 

That’s not to say he’s not cocky and ostentatious. Will doesn’t think that’ll ever change. It merely means that he has the reasoning and the knowledge of the situation to back himself up. 

“We can catch the man who framed and maimed us.”

“There’s no opportunity here, Frederick.” Will murmurs, still slightly hazy from his prolonged sleep, and had Chilton actually brought him flowers? “Not for you.”

Frederick can feel something dangerous, precarious, perched on the tip of his tongue. He gazes at him, pauses- he doesn’t say anything about the politely-worded refusal of assistance Will has just served him. 

He takes a breath.

“The optimist believes we live in the best possible world.” He begins. “The pessimist fears this is true.”

Will glances at him.

“This is your best possible world, Will. You’re not getting a better one.”

~~~~~~

Frederick leaves after a while of quiet conversation, even though Will will sometimes trail of in the middle of speaking, imagination spinning ludicrous tales of what would, could, should have been… 

Chilton doesn’t speak when he drifts. He lets him draw his conclusions and return to the present.

It’s nice to have someone on the same page as him, Will thinks.

~~~~~~

The man visits again the following week.

“Hello, Frederick.” Will raises his eyebrows this time. By now, the nurses have allowed him to sit fully upright, and he is fiddling with a pad of paper, folding rows and rows of origami swans- the only papercraft he’s ever learned to do. It helps to have something to do with his hands. “I honestly didn’t expect to see you again.”

The other man smiles. He’s holding more flowers, even though the ones he had brought the previous visit are still fairly fresh, perched on the windowsill, only slightly wilted in the tall plastic vase that one of the nurses had brought in for him. The ones in Frederick’s hands are warmer this time, a small burst of white chrysanthemums and yellow roses, the occasional daisy, wrapped tight with a strand of ivy.

“I’ve been told by doctors and friends alike that I defy expectation, Mister Graham.” He jokes, setting the bouquet down on the small table and taking a seat. “I do hope you’re recovering.”

Will huffs what could be vaguely construed as a laugh or an exasperated sigh, depending on the perception of the onlooker. 

“As well as I can, Doctor Chilton.” He makes the final crease on another paper bird, clean and white and sharp enough to draw blood, and cups it in his hand. “Thank you- for the flowers, I mean. They’re very nice.”

Frederick smiles and leans back. “I would bring whiskey instead, but apparently the hospital staff frowns upon mixing alcohol and painkillers.”

Will’s eyes flick towards the man by his bed.

“Why are you here, Frederick.” He says- less of a question, more a statement of his continued belief in his ulterior motive. “You don’t get anything out of coming here. I’ve told you all I know about Hannibal.”

The doctor doesn’t respond for a moment. He cocks his head. 

“I suppose,” he begins slowly, “I am in much of a need of a friend as you are, Will.”

That doesn’t surprise him.

Frederick doesn’t seem the type to have many friends.

“Do you know how Alana is?” Will asks. He wonders if Hannibal killed her as well- if she was no more now than a dark marble tombstone in a graveyard full of similar ones, no more than a small estate sale and a dog named Applesauce gone to live with a relative or off to the pound. “And Abigail?”

Chilton purses his lips- a microexpression, more like a tensing of the corners of his mouth.

“Doctor Bloom is recovering well.” He replies. “She was pushed out of a window in Hannibal’s home and broke a good amount of bones in her back, but she’s awake and the doctors say she will be walking again within two months.”

Will feels a small weight lifted off his chest. He’s still emotionally attached to Alana, though their friendship had been seriously strained throughout his time in the Baltimore Psychiatric Hospital.

“That’s good.” He murmurs. “And Abigail?”

Frederick looks him in the eyes.

“Abigail Hobbs bled out before the paramedics could arrive.” He says quietly.

It’s not like Will’s world shatters- he knows Hannibal, knows his mindset and his trains of thought, can map every nook and cranny of his brilliantly wicked mind, and he knows that this is his way of letting go. Killing Abigail serves as a memento to Will. It’s a murderously ghostly reminder of everything that had been, everything that could have been- the glint of a blade pressing against her neck, dark crimson against pale skin, and he will never forget the unadulterated terror that had widened her blue, blue eyes and parted her lips as she spurted rose petals.

‘They know.’ He had spoken, softly, impossibly brief words that carried the weight of a life on their timbre.

Will sighs.

Frederick is still watching him, observing.

“What about Jack?” He asks.

“Detective Crawford was released about two weeks ago.” He informs him. “Apparently, once they stemmed the bleeding, the wound healed quickly and he is home on forced retirement from the FBI, resting with his wife.”

There’s a beat of silence.

Will looks down.

“Thank you.” He murmurs. 

Chilton doesn’t reply.

~~~~~~

The next week, Frederick is wearing a crisp button-down and a dark wool coat, still sans tie- Will hasn’t seen him with his customary neckwear since before their incidents, and he can’t help but wonder what had inspired the change in attire.

Besides another near-death experience, of course. 

Perhaps this is part of his plan to forge a friendship between them, some kind of bond out of the dying embers of Hannibal Lecter’s influence.

Chilton leaves the bundle of flora in his hand on the nightstand: Will’s hospital room is beginning to smell like a flower shop. He doesn’t exactly mind. It’s a far scent better than lemon Lysol or whatever drug they have him on, and the hue, shade, feel of the petals is different, somehow, than the pristine white of the sheets he finds himself encased in- it’s as though he can see the life coursing through them, can see the processes they have developed and the way they have adapted to being severed from their home, from everything they had once known, and placed in a glass of water.

Will spends a lot of time looking at the flowers Chilton brings him.

This week it’s more somberly striking- calla lilies so dark purple they look black, yellow zinnias and sprigs of long grass. An elegant bouquet if Will has ever seen one.

“Good evening, Will.” Frederick says, and Will blinks- that greeting had been used one too many times by Hannibal, with his deep accent and unreadable sanguine eyes, and for a moment he cannot breathe-he chokes, fingers knotting together, knees locking, and it takes a solid hand on his shoulder to bring him back to reality.

“Will?” Chilton frowns. It furrows his brow.

He takes a breath and shakes the hand from his person.

“I’m fine.” Will mutters. 

He's fine.

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: i just. loved that scene. "we have matching scars" was my blog title for the longest time
> 
> [i'm on tumblr](http://serpentinej.tumblr.com)


End file.
